Gibb, Patterson Reach Shanghai Semifinals

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (May 3, 2013) – The U.S. men’s beach volleyball team of Jake Gibb and Casey Patterson has advanced to Saturday’s semifinals of the FIVB Shanghai Grand Slam, part of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour.

In the women’s bracket, the U.S. beach volleyball team of April Ross (Costa Mesa, Calif.) and Jennifer Kessy (San Juan Capistrano, Calif.) has advanced to the second round.

Gibb (Bountiful, Utah) and Patterson (Van Nuys, Calif.), seeded No. 6 in the main draw, won their pool to advance directly to Friday’s second round where they defeated Germany’s No. 10 Sebastian Dollinger and Stefan Windscheif, 21-14, 27-25 in 44 minutes. In the third round, Gibb and Patterson defeated Brazil’s No. 24 Vitor Felipe and Evandro Júnior, 24-22, 20-22, 15-9 in 57 minutes.

“That’s huge for us,” Gibb said in an FIVB press release. “It’s our second tournament together. We are a new team; it means a lot. We are really excited.

“We still have a lot of work to do. We are really rough around the edges. We are getting better, that’s what matters.”

Gibb and Patterson will play Poland’s No. 13 Michal Kadziola and Jakub Szalankiewicz in one semifinal on Saturday while Brazil’s No. 3 Bruno Schmidt and Pedro Salgado will play their countrymen Ricardo Santos and Alvaro Filho, seeded 12th, in the other. The men’s finals will also be played on Saturday.

The U.S. men’s team of Sean Rosenthal (Redondo Beach, Calif.) and Phil Dalhausser (Ormond Beach, Fla.), seeded No. 2, which won the FIVB Fuzhou Open last week, fell in Friday’s second round to Ricardo and Alvaro, 21-19, 19-21, 15-13 in 55 minutes. The U.S. team finishes tied for ninth.

“Ricardo and Alvaro played pretty well,” Dalhausser said in an FIVB press release. “We had a questionable call going against us in the third set and that made a big difference; but that’s no excuse. They played great and we didn’t play our best volleyball. This is only our second tournament of the year and there are so many good teams out there. It’s just one bad match.

“(Our goal is) to win a couple of tournaments. The No. 1 goal is to win the World Championships; we’ll see. We set off in Fuzhou well and now had a little bit of setback, so we’ll see how we come back in the next tournament. ”

The third U.S. men’s team in the tournament, No. 14 Nick Lucena (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) and Brad Keenan (Westminster, Calif.), finished tied for 17th after falling in the first round of single elimination to Kazakhstan’s No. 11 Alexey Sidorenko and Alexandr Dyachenko, 22-20, 24-22 in 40 minutes.

On the women’s side, three U.S. teams advanced from pool play.

Ross and Kessy, seeded No. 4 in the main draw, went undefeated in pool play, finishing on Friday with a 21-18, 26-24 victory in 40 minutes over Australia’s No. 20 Louise Bawden and Taliqua Clancy. They advanced to the second round where they will play Brazil’s No. 10 Talita Da Rocha Antunes and Taiana Lima on Saturday. The women’s semifinal and finals will be played on Sunday.
The No. 22 U.S. team of Lauren Fendrick (Carlsbad, Ind.) and Nicole Branagh (Orinda, Calif.) closed pool play with a 21-18, 22-20 (:42) win over Poland’s No. 27 Kinga Kolosinska and Monika Brzostek. They advanced to the first round where they lost to Russia’s No. 17 Ekaterina Khomyakova and Maria Prokopeva, 21-16, 21-16 in 33 minutes.

The No. 29 U.S. team of Jennifer Fopma (Bellflower, Calif.) and Brooke Sweat (Fort Myers, Fla.) also won their final pool play match, 21-18, 26-24 over Bawden and Clancy. However the fell to Netherlands’ No. 9 Sophie van Gestel and Madelein Meppelink, 21-15, 21-18 (:32).

The No. 30 U.S. team of Emily Day (Torrance, Calif.) and Brittany Hochevar (Fowler, Colo.) lost their final pool play match to Austria’s No. 19 Doris Schwaiger and Stefanie Schwaiger, 22-20, 21-19 in 40 minutes and did not advance.

The semifinals and finals from Shanghai will be broadcast for free at fivb.laola1.tv.